House explosion 'was like the Apocalypse'

Greg Sullivan

Friday

Feb 20, 2009 at 12:01 AMFeb 20, 2009 at 7:15 PM

Melissa Jackson thought a car had hit her house. Her daughter, Erin, 12, feared a tree had come down on their home. In reality, it was the shock of a house explosion several hundred yards away to the north that rattled the Jacksons’ Brisbon Street house Thursday night at dinner time.

Melissa Jackson thought a car had hit her house. Her daughter, Erin, 12, feared a tree had come down on their home.

In reality, it was the shock of a house explosion several hundred yards away to the north that rattled the Jacksons’ Brisbon Street house Thursday night at dinner time.

The fatal explosion at 93 New York Avenue in the Americana Terrace neighborhood was felt for miles.

Paul DeCoste, of Forsythe Street in Somerset, said not only did his wife feel the shock at their house but DeCoste’s mother, who lives in the Weaver’s Cove area across the Taunton River in Fall River, also felt it.

Many of those within a few blocks of the explosion had reactions similar to Jackson — that something violent had taken place on their property, not yards or blocks away.

“We heard a loud bang,” said Leon Thompson, of 363 Folsom Ave., who lives a few blocks from the explosion. “I thought somebody hit (my) house with a truck or a car. And everybody came out of their houses and said the same thing.”

Thompson said people told him the explosion sent mattresses from 93 New York Ave. onto the roofs of nearby homes.

Heidi Bessette, of Mt. Hope Street, southeast of the explosion, was playing ping-pong in the basement with her second-grader son Nick when the impact hit.

“I heard a big bang. I thought a plane crashed,” she said. “I started to scream and run upstairs. My sister was upstairs, and I thought something happened to her. She was screaming. She thought the house had caved in on us. The whole house shook. The windows were rattling. Nick flew under the ping-pong table. He was scared.

“One of our neighbors was walking her dog and felt a shock wave go through her. It felt like the Apocalypse.”

Once she had composed herself, Bessette made her way close to the explosion scene. “All I could see was rubble. There was no house,” she said.

Soon after the explosion, Melissa Jackson spoke on the phone with a friend who lives on Highview Avenue. Her friend, she said, and her husband were getting into their car to get a pizza when they smelled gas. Moments later, they felt the explosion.

Following the explosion, many residents gathered at the intersection of Rounseville and Connecticut avenues facing New York Avenue, which police had closed to the crowd.

Among them was Steve Moniz who lives on nearby New Hampshire Avenue and felt the explosion from home.

“From what I gather, it was a gas explosion. I got down here shortly after I heard the bang. The flames were absolutely gigantic,” Moniz said. “The chief (Somerset Police Chief Joseph Ferreira) had everybody evacuated.”

Next to Moniz, retired Somerset Fire Chief Arthur Soares, who lives on Chace Street, looked on as emergency workers worked on New York Avenue.

Soares granddaughter, Corylyn Johnson, lives with her husband, Keith, on the corner of Rounseville and New York avenues.

“I called my son, and he got in touch with them because I couldn’t get in touch with them. They were at a restaurant,” Soares said. “He called back and told me they were OK.”

Soares described the intensity of the explosion as “tremendous,” even from a distance. “From my house (on Chace Street), it was tremendous.”

Also standing with the crowd was 14-year-old Tom Franco, an eighth-grader at Somerset Middle School, who had been playing video games and was in contact with his friends online via Xbox.

“I was playing Rock Band, and all of a sudden my house shook,” Franco said. He said his friends on Xbox immediately been asking each other if they had felt the blast.

Franco described the explosion as “pretty huge, louder than my TV.”

“There was nothing left of the house. There was only a small structure left,” he said.

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